Subject: نواب nawab 'representative' lord
Culture: Indo-Muslim
Setting: late Mughal empire, India late 18-19thc
Evolution:
Context (Event Photos, Primary Sources, Secondary Sources, Field Notes)
* Berinstain 2001 p119-120
"The governors who were in charge of the oriental provinces for the Great Mughal -- the nawabs, 'representatives' -- took power in effect, and founded new dynasties. By refusing to be transferred regularly, as was formerly the custom in the Mughal empire, they succeeded in setting themselves up in their fiefs, in concentrating civil and military power in their own hands, in escaping the traditional division, and in ceasing payment of their tribute to the central power. However, despite their new independence, they did not break with Delhi.
"Several states were founded in this way: Murshidabad on the Ganges became the capital of Bengal, taking the place of Dacca, which was too far away. Its founder, Murshid Quli Khan also obtained the government of the province of Orissa, and then that of Bihar. The state of Oudh in Bihar, the cradle of Shiism, was administered from 1739 by Safdar Jang, a minister of Muhammad Shah. His successors would regularly oppose the Maratha forces. In the South in 1715, Mubariz Khan became governor and diwan of Hyderabad. He succeeded in refusing to pay an annual tribute to the Marathas, thus declaring his independence. In 1724, he was killed by his enemy Nizam al-Mulk, a Sunnite opposed to the Persians, who created the famous dynasty of the Nizams."
* Lewis 1991 p176
"Nawab, nabob, nahab [18C. H. nawwāb, pl. of Ar. naīb, 'deputy'.] Muslim Governor or nobleman." [references omitted]
* Doniger 2009 p576-577
"The Urdu/Hindi word 'nawab' designated both native deputy viceroys under the Mughals and independent rulers of Bengal, Oudh, and Arcot. The English called them nabobs (also spelled nawbob, nobob, nahab, and nohab). But then, confusingly, the English spelling (nabob) came to denote Englishmen who made fortunes working for the British East India company and returned home to purchase seats in Parliament and retire to elegant country homes -- or, finally, anyone of great wealth and/or prominence, just as the English word 'Mogul' (from 'Mughal') did. The whole lot of them, British and Mughal, were robber barons, all cut from the same (cotton) cloth. Debauched nawabs surrounded themselves with swarms of 'eunuchs, courtesans, concubines and catamites,' while the nabobs were equally dissolute and in league with the nawabs. Some Hindus thought that the British and the Mughals, nawabs and nabobs, balanced (if they did not cancel out) each other and were equally alien to the rest of the people of India."
Costume
* Pathak 2006 p137
"choga[:] Loose, sleeved, coat-like garment of Turkish origin worn over an inner garment like the angarkha. This front-open, full-length attire is considered to be an appropriate dress for ceremonial occasions. Variously known as chogha, chuba, or juba."
* Pathak 2006 p55-56
"After the Mughal rulers, provincial courts became powerful and some declared themselves independent. Some of the famous provincial courts were Avadh, Murshidabad and Punjab, while there were many others in the Rajputana region. During this period an attempt was made to capture the local identity of each provincial court in various ways, especially in the paintings of the era [18th-19th centuries]."The Avadh provincial court evolved a self-conscious style. The cuts, falls/drapes and appearance of the garment vary from that of the Mughal court. Costumes like the choga, angarkha, jama, paijama, ghagra, choli, fashi paijama, odhani and sari of the later Mughal period worn by royalty and nobility, are housed in important museums and collections across the world .... By the early 18th century, during the reigns of Farrukhsiyar (r. 1713-19) and Muhammad Shah (r. 1719-48), the jama and the angarkha, which had already increased in length in the 17th century, came right down to the feet. An almost similar style was prevalent in the Avadh court. The jama became long and trailing, almost touching the feet. It was also high-waisted with lots of gathers. Full-sleeved chapkan, usually in jamdani work, with a short neck and a tight-fitted waist with little flare below, was also popular in the Avadh court. The paijama became wider, and was worn by men and women."
Sword
* Rawson 1968 p18
"There is ... one Islamic form of sword of historical importance in India, which does not appear in the art at all, but is only known from actual weapons which survive. This is the Kopis-bladed form common in Persia, and generally known in the West by its Turkish name of Yataghan. In India it is called by its Persian and Urdu name of Sosun Pattah .... This name means 'lily leaf', and is clearly derived from the shape of the blade. There is in India, however, another form of sword of a shape strikingly similar, but of entirely different ancestry, often called by the same name, and it is necessary to distinguish between the two forms. The Islamic form has a blade whose edge and reverse edge both show smooth recurves, whereas the other form has a smoothly recurved edge, but a reverse edge more or less straight, from the outer end of which a concave segment is taken, and a larger belly to the blade. Despite its absence from the art it is reasonable to assume that the Islamic form was known in India in the seventeenth century, since it was known in Persia in the sixteenth, and actual examples are recorded from India of the eighteenth -- though, and the point may be of some importance, only from Hyderabad, Deccan."
* Robinson 1967 p99
"The Nepalese kukri and the Muhammadan and Hindu forms of sword termed sosun pattah (willow leaf) are direct descendants of the Greek and Persian sword called machaira, which, in its turn, was evolved from the Egyptian and Babylonian kopis."
* Paul 1995 p47
"The Mughal sosun patta has the standard Indian hilt ...."
* Tarassuk/Blair 1979 p444
"sosun pattah A cut-and-thrust sword of northern India, with a blade closely related to that of the kopis and the yatagan. The word literally means 'lily leaf,' which is certainly apposite for the blade, which is broad, single-edged, and incurving. The typical Rajput sosun pattah has a padded basket hilt with a saucer-like pommel surmounted by an elongated curved knob, while the Islamic sosun pattah has an open hilt with a strong cross guard and langets, the grip being surmounted by a disc pommel."
